Of all the `classic` Coltrane Quartet recordings in my collection this is the one I return to most frequently, notwithstanding the pre-eminence of his magnum opus, A Love Supreme. It has many virtues which I shall attempt to relate and is notable in that it was admired by the saxophonist’s most vitriolic critic, the poet and part time jazz columnist, Phillip Larkin.The five pieces, three recorded in live in a club setting and a further two captured at the famous Van Gelder recording studio provide us with a well- rounded view of the group’s capabilities and characteristics at a point in Coltrane’s career before he launched into total abstraction and left some of his early followers behind. There is passion, as in his frenzied account of Mongo Santamaria’s `Afro Blue` , his soprano soaring above Elvin’s turbulent polyrhythms and Tyner’s pounding chords ; transcendental modalism and vocalised eloquence in the two originals, `The Promise` and ` Your Lady` whilst` Alabama`, his famous lament on an appalling terrorist atrocity ,is a display of solemnity and pathos with grief turning to anger in the closing bars as the rising tumult of Elvin’s drumming signals the onset of rage and resistance.The single song book ballad, Billy Eckstein’s `I Want to Talk About You`, which like the former piece is played on tenor, invests the potentially maudlin tune with a bleak but moving existential quality and is subjected to a deep interrogation especially in the final unaccompanied coda which presages the obsessive garrulity that was to become a hallmark of Coltrane’s playing as the Sixties advanced.

The Coltrane quartet discography contains many albums that are more stylistically and conceptually integrated but Live at Birdland, notwithstanding its rough edges and occasional longueurs is a `warts and all` display of the quartet at the height of its powers locked into a powerful and emotional dialogue that remains to this day a potent testimony to their combined virtuosity and vision.